question_answer 5)

Apparent illogicality sometimes turns out to be a futuristic projection. Discuss.    

Answer:

Is it possible to see into the future? Perhaps not. Yet there are times when seemingly irrational views turn out to be a futuristic projection. History is replete with such examples. To quote some: (a) Many believe that a man named Michel de Nostradamus could predict the future. His predictions of the future have mystified scholars for over 400 years. Nostradamus made over 1000 predictions and historians say that over half of them, have already come true. (b) Leonardo da Vinci, too, succeeded in foreseeing so much. Leonardo lived 500 years ago, his life spanning the discovery of the New World. He made projections in the form of drawings and inventions; each design may be seen as a projection that something much like it could be made to work in future. He succeeded as a mechanical engineer, he designed devices (some were not to be built for centuries) for excavating, metalworking, transmitting power, and other purpose. (c) Similarly, the predictions about aircrqfts might have seemed very illogical when references about them came up in the Vedas and later Indian literature with vimanas of various shapes and sizes. •             In the Vedas references to: - flying wheeled chariots pulled by animals, usually horses (but the Vedic god Paksan's chariot is pulled by goats). - The agnihotra-vimana with two engines. (Agni means fire in Sanskrit.) - The gaja-vimana with more engines. (Gaja means elephant in Sanskrit.) - Other types named after the kingfisher, ibis, and other animals. (d) Wordsworth's lament on man destroying Nature, now concerns the world—like global warming.